See How Easy a Turkey Deep Fryer Can Set Your Home on Fire
I’ve heard that roasted turkey tastes great, but roasted turkey itself poses a serious risk of burning down your home. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which regularly sets fire to the holidays , has released a new video showing how not to roast a turkey.
To set up the video, CPSC staff took a turkey that was not completely thawed and threw it into a deep fryer that was overflowing with hot oil and had been preheating for too long. Oil spills and splashes all over the environment, and soon everything catches on fire. You probably already know that you shouldn’t put a turkey fryer in your kitchen, but you might think you can put it in the corner of your garage. Theprevious year’s video shows the same unsafe scenario on the porch. None of these installations are far enough away from flammable objects such as your home.
In both scenarios, the fire from the fryer is extinguished, but the danger has not yet passed. The first reaction of most people is to try to put out the fire with water, but in reality this only makes the situation worse. Do you see people walking with hoses and (because this is a demonstration and they are smart) firemen? Their attempts to extinguish the fire simply spray the burning oil around.
All of the risk factors in the video, such as frozen turkey, overflowing hot oil and splashing water on the fire, “we’ve seen what people do over the years and they’re incredibly dangerous,” says a social media specialist at CPSC. Joseph Galbo.
If you’re still in the mood for roasting turkey, the CPSC claims that you can reduce your risk of fire by:
- Follow the instructions that came with your deep fat fryer.
- Only roast the turkey a safe distance from home, ideally on the ground, away from leaves or flammable debris.
- Do not extinguish fire with water. Call 911.
The National Fire Protection Association, another organization that doesn’t like it when people set their houses on fire, recommends that if you don’t have an oil-free turkey fryer, you should probably just buy a roast turkey at a restaurant. I must admit: Takeout is a life hack.